166 Facts About Jefferson Davis

Jefferson F Davis was an American politician who served as the first and only president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865.

Jefferson Davis represented Mississippi in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives as a member of the Democratic Party before the American Civil War.

Jefferson Davis had previously served as the United States Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857 under President Franklin Pierce.

Jefferson Davis grew up in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, and lived in Louisiana.

Jefferson Davis married Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of general and future President Zachary Taylor, in 1835, when he was 27.

Jefferson Davis recovered slowly and had recurring bouts of illness throughout his life.

At the age of 36, Jefferson Davis married again, to 18-year-old Varina Howell.

Jefferson Davis was never tried and was released after two years.

Jefferson Davis's legacy is intertwined with his role as President of the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis married Jane Cook, a woman of Scots-Irish descent whom he had met in South Carolina during his military service, in 1783.

Jefferson F Davis was born at the family homestead in Davisburg, a village Samuel had established that later became Fairview, Kentucky, on June 3,1808.

Jefferson Davis worked in the fields with his slaves, and eventually built a house, which Jane called Rosemont.

When Jefferson Davis was around five, he received a rudimentary education at a small schoolhouse near Woodville.

Jefferson Davis then attended the Wilkinson County Academy near Woodville for five years.

Joseph, who was 23 years older than Jefferson Davis, took on the role of being his surrogate father.

Joseph got Jefferson Davis appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1824.

Jefferson Davis became friends with classmates Albert Sidney Johnston and Leonidas Polk.

Jefferson Davis went to Mississippi on furlough in March 1832, missing the outbreak of the Black Hawk War.

Jefferson Davis returned after the capture of Black Hawk and escorted him for detention in St Louis.

Jefferson Davis asked Taylor if he could marry Sarah, but Taylor refused.

Jefferson Davis was promoted to first lieutenant and deployed at Fort Gibson in Arkansas Territory.

Jefferson Davis was acquitted, but in the meantime he had requested a furlough.

When Jefferson Davis returned to Mississippi he decided to become a planter.

Jefferson Davis provided Davis 800 acres of his land to start a plantation at Davis Bend, though Joseph retained the title to the property.

Jefferson Davis loaned Davis the money to buy ten slaves to clear and cultivate the land, which Jefferson named Brierfield Plantation.

For several years following Sarah's death, Jefferson Davis spent much of his time at Brierfield supervising the enslaved workers and developing his plantation.

Jefferson Davis made his first slave, James Pemberton, Brierfield's effective overseer, a position he held until his death around 1850.

Joseph maintained a large library on Hurricane Plantation, allowing Jefferson Davis to read up on politics, the law, and economics.

Joseph, who became particularly concerned with national attempts to limit slavery in new territories during this time, often served as Davis's advisor as they increasingly became involved in politics, and Jefferson was the beneficiary of his brother's political influence.

Jefferson Davis first became directly involved in politics in 1840 when he attended a Democratic Party meeting in Vicksburg and served as a delegate to the party's state convention in Jackson; he served again in 1842.

In November 1843, he was chosen to be the Democratic candidate for the state House of Representatives for Warren County less than one week before the election after the original candidate withdrew his nomination; Jefferson Davis lost the election.

In early 1844, Jefferson Davis was chosen to serve as a delegate to the state convention again.

On his way to Jackson, Jefferson Davis met Varina Banks Howell, then 18 years old, when he delivered an invitation from Joseph for her to stay at the Hurricane Plantation for the Christmas season.

Jefferson Davis was a granddaughter of New Jersey Governor Richard Howell; her mother's family was from the South.

At the convention, Jefferson Davis was selected as one of Mississippi's six presidential electors for the 1844 presidential election.

In July 1845, Jefferson Davis became a candidate for the United States House of Representatives.

Jefferson Davis ran on a platform that emphasized a strict constructionist view of the constitution, states' rights, a reduction of tariffs, and opposition to a national bank.

Jefferson Davis won the election and entered the 29th Congress.

Jefferson Davis argued for the American right to annex Oregon but to do so by peaceful compromise with Britain.

Jefferson Davis spoke against the use of federal monies for internal improvements that he believed would undermine the autonomy of the states, and on May 11,1846, he voted for war with Mexico.

Jefferson Davis expressed his interest in joining the regiment if elected its colonel, and in the second round of elections in June 1846 he was chosen.

Jefferson Davis did not resign his position as a US Representative, but left a letter of resignation with his brother Joseph to submit when he thought it was appropriate.

Jefferson Davis was able to get his entire regiment armed with new percussion rifles instead of the smoothbore muskets used by other regiments.

President Polk had given his approval for their purchase as a political favor in return for Jefferson Davis marshalling enough votes to pass the Walker Tariff, despite the objections of the commanding general of the US Forces, Winfield Scott, who felt that the guns had not been sufficiently tested and deplored the fact that they could not be fitted with bayonets.

Jefferson Davis's regiment was assigned to the army of his former father-in-law, Zachary Taylor, in northeastern Mexico.

Jefferson Davis returned to Mexico and fought in the Battle of Buena Vista on February 22,1847.

Jefferson Davis's tactics stopped a flanking attack by the Mexican forces that threatened to collapse the American line, although he was wounded in the heel during the fighting.

Jefferson Davis declined the appointment, arguing he could not directly command militia units because the US Constitution gives the power of appointing militia officers to the states, not the federal government.

Jefferson Davis took his seat in December 1847 and was appointed as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution.

Jefferson Davis quickly established himself as an advocate of the South and its expansion into the territories of the West.

Jefferson Davis was against the Wilmot Proviso, which was intended to assure that any territory acquired from Mexico would be free of slavery.

Jefferson Davis asserted that only states, not territories, had sovereignty.

Jefferson Davis tried to amend the Oregon Bill that established Oregon as a territory to allow settlers to bring their slaves.

Jefferson Davis was able to return to Brierfield for seven months.

Jefferson Davis was reelected by the state legislature for another six-year term in the Senate.

Jefferson Davis turned down the offer, saying it was inconsistent with his duty as a senator.

Jefferson Davis was against the resolutions, as he felt they would put the South at a political disadvantage.

Jefferson Davis countered that Congress should establish a territorial government for California, which would give Southerners the right to colonize the territory with their slaves.

Jefferson Davis suggested that extending the Missouri Compromise Line, which defined which territories were open to slavery, to the Pacific was acceptable, arguing that the region south of the line was favorable for the expansion of slavery.

Jefferson Davis stated that not allowing slavery into the new territories denied the political equality of Southerners, and that it would destroy the balance of power between Northern and Southern states in the Senate.

Jefferson Davis continued to oppose the Compromise of 1850 after it passed.

Jefferson Davis spent much of the next fifteen months at Brierfield.

Jefferson Davis remained politically active, attending the Democratic convention in January 1852 and campaigning for Democratic candidates Franklin Pierce and William R King during the presidential election of 1852.

Jefferson Davis championed a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific, arguing it was needed for national defense, and was entrusted with overseeing the Pacific Railroad Surveys to determine which of four possible routes was the best.

Jefferson Davis promoted the Gadsden Purchase of today's southern Arizona from Mexico, partly because he preferred a southern route for the new railroad; the Pierce administration agreed and the land was purchased in December 1853.

Jefferson Davis presented the surveys' findings in 1855, but they failed to clarify which route was best, and sectional problems arising with any attempt to choose one made constructing the railroad impossible at the time.

Jefferson Davis argued for the acquisition of Cuba from Spain, seeing it as an opportunity to add the island, a strategic military location, as another slave state to the Union.

Jefferson Davis felt the size of the regular army was insufficient to fulfill its mission and that salaries had to be increased, something which had not occurred for 25 years.

Jefferson Davis ended the manufacture of smoothbore muskets for the military and shifted production to rifles, and worked to develop the tactics that go with them.

Jefferson Davis oversaw the building of public works in Washington DC, including federal buildings and the initial construction of the Washington Aqueduct.

Jefferson Davis helped get the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in 1854 by allowing President Pierce to endorse it before it came up for a vote.

Jefferson Davis supported it, but it was not passed, in part because the leading Democrat in the North, Stephen Douglas, refused to support because he felt it did not represent the true will of the settlers in Kansas.

Jefferson Davis spent the summer of 1858 in Portland, Maine.

Jefferson Davis stated that he felt positively about the benefits of Union, but acknowledged that the Union could be dissolved if states' rights were violated and one section of the country imposed its will on another.

In February 1860, Jefferson Davis presented a series of resolutions defining the relationship between the states under the constitution, including the assertion that Americans had a constitutional right to bring slaves into territories.

Jefferson Davis counselled moderation, but South Carolina adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20,1860, and Mississippi did so on January 9,1861.

Jefferson Davis had expected this but waited until he received official notification.

Jefferson Davis was chosen because of his political prominence, his military reputation, and his moderate approach to secession, which could bring Unionists and undecided voters over to his side.

Jefferson Davis had been hoping for a military command, but he accepted and committed himself fully to his new role.

Jefferson Davis preferred to avoid a crisis as he realized the Confederacy was still weak and needed time to organize its resources.

Jefferson Davis did so and was willing to consider compensation, but President of the United States Lincoln refused to meet with the commissioners.

Jefferson Davis had a habit of overworking, particularly in minor military issues that could have been delegated.

Jefferson Davis initially agreed with Walker, but then changed his mind and allowed Polk to remain.

Around this time, Jefferson Davis appointed his long-time friend, General Albert Sidney Johnston, as commander of the western military department that included much of Tennessee, Kentucky, western Mississippi, and Arkansas.

The commanders responsible for the defeat were Brigadier Generals Gideon Pillow and John B Floyd, political generals that Davis had been required to appoint.

Around the time of the fall of Forts Henry and Donelson, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president on February 22,1862.

Jefferson Davis replaced Secretary of War Benjamin, who had been scapegoated for the defeats, with George W Randolph, although he subsequently made Benjamin secretary of state to replace Hunter, who had stepped down.

Jefferson Davis reminded Johnston that it was his duty to not let Richmond fall.

Jefferson Davis approved, suggesting that an attack could gain the Confederacy Kentucky and regain Tennessee, but he did not create a unified command.

Jefferson Davis had created a new department independent of Bragg under Major General Edmund Kirby Smith at Knoxville, Tennessee, assuming that Bragg and Kirby Smith would work together.

Jefferson Davis expected Johnston to relieve Bragg of his command because of his defeats, but Johnston refused.

Jefferson Davis saw this as evidence of the North's desire to destroy the South and as inciting the enslaved people of the South to rebellion.

Jefferson Davis requested a law that Union officers captured in Confederate states be delivered to state authorities to be tried and executed for inciting slave rebellion.

Jefferson Davis concentrated troops from across the south to counter the move, but Joseph Johnston did not stop the Union forces.

Jefferson Davis acknowledged that Bragg did not have the confidence of his immediate subordinates, but decided to keep him in command.

Jefferson Davis replaced him with Joseph Johnston, and assigned Bragg as an informal chief of staff.

Jefferson Davis then ordered them to disperse or he would command the soldiers to open fire.

In Greensboro, Jefferson Davis held a summit with his cabinet, Joseph Johnston, Beauregard, and Governor Zebulon Vance of North Carolina, arguing that they must cross the Mississippi River and continue the war there.

The generals argued that they did not have the forces to continue; Jefferson Davis finally gave Johnston authorization to discuss terms of capitulation for his army.

Jefferson Davis was told that they were not able to.

Jefferson Davis continued on, hoping to join Kirby Smith's army across the Mississippi.

Jefferson Davis tried to evade capture, but was caught wearing a loose-sleeved, water-repellent cloak and a black shawl over his head, which gave rise to depictions of him in political cartoons fleeing in women's clothes.

Jefferson Davis arrived in Richmond at the end of May 1861, moving into the White House of the Confederacy in August.

In November, Jefferson Davis was officially elected to a six-year term, and was inaugurated on February 22,1862.

On his arrival in Richmond, Jefferson Davis had attempted to create public support for the war by describing it as a battle for liberty, claiming the original US Constitution as the sacred document of the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis deemphasized the role slavery played in the secession, but asserted white citizens' right to have slaves without outside interference.

Jefferson Davis had to create a government with almost no institutional structures in place.

Jefferson Davis quickly built a strong central government to address these problems.

Jefferson Davis received authorization from Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when needed.

Jefferson Davis was confident that Britain's and most other European nations' economic dependence on cotton from the South would quickly convince them to sign treaties with the Confederacy.

One of Jefferson Davis's first choices for envoy to Britain, William Yancey, was a poor one.

Jefferson Davis was a strong defender of slavery and had favored the return of the slave trade, creating the impression that he was impulsive and erratic.

Jefferson Davis wanted to make the cotton available, but require the Europeans to obtain it by violating the blockade declared by the Union; Secretary of War Benjamin and Secretary of the Treasury Memminger wanted to export cotton to Europe and warehouse it there to use as credit; the majority of Congress wanted to embargo cotton until Europe was coerced to help the South.

Jefferson Davis did not allow an outright embargo; he thought it might push Britain and France away.

Jefferson Davis knew very little about public finance, largely deferring to Secretary of the Treasury Memminger.

Jefferson Davis wanted a trial to vindicate his actions, and his defense lawyer, Charles O'Conor, realized a trial could be used to test the constitutionality of secession by arguing that Jefferson Davis did not commit treason because he was no longer a citizen of the United States when Mississippi left the United States.

Jefferson Davis remained under indictment until after Johnson's proclamation on Christmas 1868 granting amnesty and pardon to all participants in the rebellion.

Jefferson Davis left his family in England because he was not financially stable.

Jefferson Davis moved into the Peabody Hotel and committed himself to work, hiring former friends such as Braxton Bragg to serve as agents.

Jefferson Davis went back to England to get his family in late summer of 1870.

When Robert E Lee died in 1870, Davis delivered a public eulogy at the Lee Monument Association held in Richmond on November 3, emphasizing Lee's character and avoiding politics.

Jefferson Davis declined most, but he gave the commencement speech at the University of the South in 1871 and a speech to the Virginia Historical Society at White Sulphur Springs declaring that the South had been cheated, and would not have surrendered if they had known what to expect from Reconstruction, particularly the changed status of freed African Americans.

Jefferson Davis went back to England in January 1874 looking to convince an English insurance company to open a branch in the American South, but heard that animosity toward him in the North was too much of a liability.

Jefferson Davis explored other possibilities of employment in France, but none worked out.

Jefferson Davis litigated to gain control of Brierfield, and when a judge dismissed his suit in 1876, he appealed.

Jefferson Davis then foreclosed on the Montgomerys who were in default on their mortgage and in December 1881, Brierfield was back in his hands, although he did not live there and it did not produce a reliable income.

Jefferson Davis gave a few speeches at county fairs as well.

Jefferson Davis worked for an English company, the Mississippi Valley Society, to promote trade and European immigration.

Jefferson Davis traveled through the South and Midwest, and in 1876, he and Varina again went to Europe.

When Jefferson Davis began writing at Beauvoir, he and Varina lived separately.

In 1878, Jefferson Davis missed the deadline to complete his work, and eventually Appleton intervened directly.

The book was intended as a vindication of Jefferson Davis's actions, reiterating that the South had acted constitutionally in seceding from the Union and that the North was wrong for prosecuting an unjust, destructive war; additionally it explicitly downplayed slavery's role in the origins of the war.

Jefferson Davis became a life-time member, and appreciated the society as a depository of information on the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis responded in a personal letter to Theodore Roosevelt when the future president accused him of being a traitor like Benedict Arnold.

Jefferson Davis publicly maintained that he had done nothing wrong and that he had always upheld the Constitution.

In 1886, Henry W Grady, an advocate for the New South, convinced Davis to lay the cornerstone for a monument to the Confederate dead in Montgomery, Alabama, and to attend the unveilings of statues memorializing Davis's friend Benjamin H Hill in Savannah and the Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene in Atlanta.

The tour was a triumph for Jefferson Davis and got extensive newspaper coverage, which emphasized national unity and the South's role as a permanent part of the United States.

At each city and on stops along the way, large crowds came out to cheer Jefferson Davis, solidifying his image as an icon of the Old South and the Confederate cause, and making him into a symbol for the New South.

In October 1887, Jefferson Davis participated in his last tour, traveling to the Georgia State Fair in Macon, Georgia, for a grand reunion with Confederate veterans.

Redpath's encouragement helped Jefferson Davis to completed his final book A Short History of the Confederate States of America in October 1889; he began dictating his memoirs, although they were never finished.

In November 1889, Jefferson Davis left Beauvoir and embarked on a steamboat in New Orleans in a cold rain to visit his Brierfield plantation.

Jefferson Davis fell ill during the trip, but refused to send for a doctor.

Jefferson Davis finally got medical care and was diagnosed with acute bronchitis complicated by malaria.

Jefferson Davis remained bedridden but stable for the next two weeks.

Jefferson Davis took a turn for the worse in early December, and died at 12:45am on Friday, December 6,1889, in the presence of several friends and holding Varina's hand.

Jefferson Davis's funeral was one of the largest held in the South; over 200,000 mourners were estimated to have attended.

Varina decided that Jefferson Davis should be buried in Richmond, which she saw as the appropriate resting place for dead Confederate heroes.

In May 1893, Jefferson Davis's remains traveled from New Orleans to Richmond.

Jefferson Davis insisted that the states are sovereign, all powers of the federal government are granted by those states, the Constitution recognized the right of states to allow citizens to have slaves as property, and the federal government was obligated to defend encroachments upon this right.

Jefferson Davis further claimed that slavery does not need to be justified: it was sanctioned by religion and history, blacks were destined for bondage, their enslavement was a civilizing blessing to them that brought economic and social good to everyone.

On February 2,1860, Jefferson Davis presented a set of resolutions to the Senate that not only reaffirmed the constitutional rights of slave owners, but declared that the federal government should be responsible for protecting slave owners and their slaves in the territories.

In early 1864, Major General Patrick Cleburne sent a proposal to Jefferson Davis to enlist African Americans in the army, but Jefferson Davis silenced it.

Congress passed an act supporting him, but left the principle of slavery intact by leaving it to the states and individual owners to decide which slaves could used for military service, and Jefferson Davis's administration accepted only African Americans who had been freed by their masters as a condition of their being enlisted.

Jefferson Davis came to the role of commander in chief with military experience.

Jefferson Davis had graduated from West Point Military Academy, had regular army and combat experience, and commanded both volunteer and regular troops.

Jefferson Davis played an active role in overseeing the military policy of the Confederacy: he worked long hours attending to paperwork related to the organization, finance, and logistics needed to maintain the Confederate armies.

Some historians argued that aspects of Jefferson Davis's personality contributed to the defeat of the Confederacy.

Jefferson Davis's focus on military details has been used as an example of his inability to delegate, which led him to lose focus on larger issues.

In particular, despite the South's focus on states' rights, Jefferson Davis quickly mobilized the Confederacy and stayed focused on gaining independence.

Jefferson Davis was a skilled orator who attempted to share the vision of national unity.

Jefferson Davis shared his message through newspaper, public speeches, and trips where he would meet with the public.

Jefferson Davis's policies sustained the Confederate armies through numerous campaigns, buoying Southern hopes for victory and undermining the North's will to continue the war.

Jefferson Davis's standing among white Southerners was at a low point at the end of the Civil War, but it rebounded after his release from prison.

Jefferson Davis's birthday was made a legal holiday in six southern states.

However, Jefferson Davis's legacy continued to spark controversy into the twenty-first century.

Memorials such as the Jefferson Davis Highway have been argued to legitimate the white supremacist, slaveholding ideology of the Confederacy, and a number of his memorials have been removed, including his statues at the University of Texas at Austin, New Orleans, Memphis, Tennessee, and the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort.